Silk
by The Queen of Double Standards
Summary: The worst part of being near Mayu was how she caused Tei to forget just how psychotic she herself was.


**Author's Note: For Chemical Emotion :)**

**Silk**

If there was one word I'd use to describe Mayu, it would be silk.

Everything about her said 'silk' to me. Her long, rainbow strained hair. The infinite layers of bows, ribbons, and lace with which she adorned herself. The smoothness of her delicate skin. The way she spoke so sweetly. The lies that she murmured so easily to me. The moment it took for her disappointment or frustration to drift to that placid smile. How she stained so easily. The way she'd wrap herself around me and whisper that there's no need to fight. The comfort of her embrace. The strong delicacy of her gaze. How easily she forgot. How quickly she brushed things off. The way she wore her stains with pride, as though their change in her colour had been a decision made entirely of her own.

Yes, Mayu was silk. That was what she was. I could think of no word better to describe her.

I was staring at her as I thought of this, she who was standing in the kitchen with a butcher knife clasped comfortably in her hand. She wore a soft smile, making her look like nothing more than a simple housewife, albeit she was merely fifteen. It was hard to believe that this girl was so young, however, when I looked at her, she who had done such terrible things in the past, even more of so that she probably hadn't told me. But who was I to judge when I, too, had done such things in the past?

Mayu made me forget about that so often. How many times had I gone into a black rage the moment I'd see anyone coming near my Len? It was only he who stopped me from ending lives, and it was only she that resulted in the lives being ended. She hated anyone who upset me, she told me, because she loved me. So she couldn't stand them living. I'd told her many times over simply how much I hated those unnecessary deaths; she killed them anyway. Mayu wasn't like me. She could look back on those murders and feel no need for regret or repentance.

Was I smug? Conceited? After all, I acted as though I was so superior to her, but wasn't I just as insane as she was? I'd probably kill at the slightest provocation if it weren't for Len stopping me each time. Witnessing Mayu's madness made me forget my own. Staying near her wasn't healthy, but, for Len's sake, I had to let her believe I loved her.

She looked at me now, and I stared back evenly. She had a delicate curiosity in her gaze, and I made sure my eyes told her nothing. I knew what would happen if she knew of my love for Len, whom I knew would never love me back after seeing the darkest sides of me but whom I couldn't move past all the same. So, for the sake of the one who held my heart, I stayed by the girl whose heart I held. Mayu didn't see anything she found interesting in my gaze, for which I was grateful, so she disregarded my eyes on her with a small, slightly confused smile and returned her attentions to the meal she was cooking. It was absurdly discomforting to see her holding a blade for such a menial task when I was well aware of the other ways she'd easily use it.

If there was one word I'd use to describe Len, it would be ice, but not the thick, hard sort of ice. The thin ice that formed atop puddles within the fall, the breakable kind that was so pretty but so easily fractured.

But Mayu was no further away than the other room at this moment, so now wasn't a time to think about Len, no matter how much I may have loved him. It was for his sake that I kept myself so close to Mayu, the young girl who I knew I could never trust with my life, because she loved me far too much. Were I ever to show up dead, no one would question that it was Mayu. Were anyone to ever have laid eyes on me to show up dead, she'd be the first one they'd look to. Mayu was psychotic, obsessive, possessive beyond even I myself, or so I liked to believe. In earnest, though, if I truly thought about it, we were a match made in heaven. There'd never be a couple more suited to each other than us two, because we could understand each other as no one else ever could.

After all, we were merely two psychopaths.

I had to assume this was why Mayu found herself so fascinated by me, why her love for me had grown to this extent. It was only I who could appreciate the way she showed her affections, no matter how much I wished they were directed at someone other than me. I was the only one she could relate to, the only one who could at the very least accept her desire to love me in this way. If there were ever to be someone who could love Mayu, it had to be me, because I was just like her. So she kept me imprisoned here with her, praying that I'd one day come to love her back. I never would, though. I loved Len, no one else.

I'd never liked silk. It wasn't something I could wear suitably, and it was something I could never care for, no matter how much I might try to force myself into liking it. As such, ever since I was young, whenever someone would present me with the stuff, I'd pretend to like it until they turned around, and then I would promptly rip it apart and dispose of the pieces. I'd rather wear something more suitable to going outside and playing in the mud of spring or the snow and ice of winter. I'd always been this way, hadn't I? Whatever stood in the way of what I wanted, I'd break apart. As such, so long as Mayu stood in my way of Len, I'd have to get rid of her.

That was the worst part of being near Mayu. Until I heard her scream as the knife she'd been chopping vegetables with moments ago was ripped from her hands, until I saw her blood staining the endless array of ribbons and bows that she covered herself with, until I heard her still in her dying moments whispering words of love to and for me, until that moment when she drew her last breath, I forgot that she wasn't alone. After all, I truly was just as psychotic as she was.


End file.
